If the Northwest Film Center's Reel Music festival were a band, it would probably be an aging collection of classic rock stars on yet another reunion tour or releasing yet another cash-grab greatest-hits collection.

Luckily, it's not, and even on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the festival continues to exude a vibrant affection for an almost bewilderingly diverse array of styles and genres. Unless you're someone who doesn't like any sort of music at all (and, really, how many people can say that?), there's bound to be something of interest and edification in the lineup.

This year's program features a number of visiting artists, including a rare appearance by guitarist and composer Marc Ribot performing his original score for Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid."

Local ties abound as well, such as an evening showcasing the groundbreaking music videos that have emerged from Portlander Jim Blashfield's studio over the last 25 years. The selections -- D.C. punk legends Bad Brains, Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, folk pioneer Woody Guthrie and rapper Ice-T among them -- offer the opportunity to embrace beloved icons or to broaden one's musical horizons.

The following are highlights from the festival's first week. For a complete schedule, visit www.nwfilm.org.

The first 15 seconds of "This Magic Moment" might be the most sublime in American popular music. Cellos and violins swirl and fade before Ben E. King comes in on the cloud of Doc Pomus' lyrics. "So different and so new": those five words express romantic yearning and the promise of love better than anything Shakespeare or anyone else ever wrote.

The man who wrote them was born Jerome Felder in Brooklyn, the son of Jewish immigrants who contracted polio at age 6 and used crutches and a wheelchair the rest of his life. He became a blues singer, then the writer of songs that shot straight as an arrow from his heart to the world. "AKA Doc Pomus" is a lively, inspiring look at the big-hearted man who couldn't dance with his wife on their wedding day because of his disability and turned his pain into "Save the Last Dance for Me." Bob Dylan said everything you need to know about being young is in "A Teenager in Love." Other friends (Lou Reed, Dr. John, Little Jimmy Scott) join the chorus in a fascinating, uplifting documentary. --Jeff Baker

Austrian composer Gustav Mahler led anything but a happy life. Despite a groundbreaking tenure as artistic director of the Vienna Court Opera, and writing some of the greatest orchestral music ever, he faced brutal anti-Semitism and personal tragedy, including the betrayal of his wife that broke his heart. But without all the sorrow, would his greatest symphonies have had the same depth and beauty?

This French documentary includes interviews with some of Mahler's greatest interpreters, including conductors Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado and Pierre Boulez, and features stirring performances. Mahler's life may not have been happy, but his work remains one of the joys of classical music. --Grant Butler

"UNDER AFRICAN SKIES"108 min., 6:30 p.m. Saturday; Grade: B

In 1985, Paul Simon, adrift after the failure of 1983's "Hearts and Bones," took a bold left turn. He sought out an eclectic mix of South African artists to collaborate on 1986's "Graceland" -- exposing Western audiences to new world-music voices and, as David Byrne puts it in Joe Berlinger's celebratory making-of doc, rejoining American music with its African roots.

Berlinger juxtaposes '80s behind-the-scenes and concert footage with a 25th-anniversary reunion of Simon, the album musicians and the critics who slammed Simon for ignoring the UN's anti-apartheid cultural boycott while exposing the world to South African culture.

The history (and passionate arguments about art and its obligation to politics) are fascinating -- though I do wish they'd at least have touched on the Los Lobos/Simon dispute over "The Myth of Fingerprints" songwriting credit. --Mike Russell, Special to The Oregonian

"WAGNER'S DREAM" 112 min., 4:30 p.m. Sunday; Grade: A–

When The Metropolitan Opera set out to revolutionize Richard Wagner's four-part "Ring Cycle," it turned to French-Canadian director Robert Lapage, who created one of the most complicated productions in opera history. With a massive, 90,000-pound set of moving parts and digital projections, staging each opera becomes a headache of technical glitches and serious second-guessing by the Met's artistic staff.

It all culminates with opening night performances marred by the set freezing up when it's supposed to move, and opera singers falling flat on their faces. The reception from audiences and critics is chilly, but the show goes on.

You don't get to see enough of the actual production to totally understand its frosty reception, but it's a fascinating look at ambitious theatrical design and the perils of dreaming too big. --Grant Butler

"RHINO RESURRECTED" 75 min., 8:30 p.m. Monday; Grade: B

In its broad strokes, the story of Rhino Records is a typical case study in counterculture success and its myriad pleasures and perils. The label, renowned for its devotion to eclecticism and its painstakingly assembled reissues, had its genesis in a record store opened by Richard Foos in 1973 on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles.

When the eccentric musician "Wild Man" Fischer recorded the screeching, tuneless ode "Go to Rhino Records," it became the first release on Rhino, which over the years expanded from novelty tunes such as "Fish Heads" to a multimedia empire.

The record store closed in 2005, but a "pop-up" version appeared briefly in early 2011, resulting in an ad hoc reunion of ex-employees and fans, as well as this ragged, affectionate collection of interviews and reminiscences. Together, they tell the all-too-familiar tale of an independent-minded business that eventually lost its way but retains a special fondness in the hearts of music lovers everywhere.